As A boy growing up in Puri, artist Bijay Kumar Parida has vivid recollections of mooning over the exquisite Patachitra paintings that adorned the inner sanctum of the temple Jagannath, Balbhadra and Subhadra. "Every year my father would carry me on his shoulders to witness the famous rath yatra and I'd be overwhelmed by the experience. The tales of heroes and demons, of love and longing from the mythological epics that the pattachitras embodied came alive for me. I knew right then that I wanted to be an artist," he tells us over the phone from Orissa.